


Poltergeists for Sidekicks

by Gel_Pens



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Psychopomps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25956382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gel_Pens/pseuds/Gel_Pens
Summary: Whenever the Team has a brush with death, be it their own or someone else in the field, they see Wally.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Poltergeists for Sidekicks

Ever since that mission went south, Artemis can’t stop seeing ghosts. Well. A ghost. _Her_ ghost. A black-grey-red-red- _red_ blur she keeps seeing out of the corner of her eye. Every time she turns and looks it’s gone. And every time she’s seen it, someone’s died. It’s important, that she thinks of it as an _it_ , as a not-person, because the other option just means she’s finally losing it, cracking under the stress, and she can’t let that happen. If it _was_ Wally, he’d slow down for her. He’d be wearing yellow, yellow and red like the day he died. He’d say something, he’d haunt her _properly_ , like Greta, like Secret, he’d finish what he left unfinished and move on, wouldn’t he? So. It couldn’t be him. It was some other ghost but it was hers all the same. She tried to ignore it. 

M’gann gets... echoes. It’s like a bright spot on her mental landscape, a flash of a mind that’s hungry-lightning-laughter and a mind that is gone, gone, _gone._ It wasn’t _fair,_ it wasn’t like when she’d reach for Tula or Jason right after they’d died and get nothing, stumbling over the absence of their mind like she was stepping down onto a landing when she’d expected another stair, that moment of an unexpected drop. But she’d known Wally for longer, and emotions were messy, and maybe the echoes were just memories of a familiar mind. _Maybe_ a lot of things. It didn’t feel like a memory, when it happened. It felt like he was trying to say hello. 

The Man in Black was nice. Dying was uncomfortable and unpleasant, but he was never either of those things. He smiled with his whole face and told Halo she was brave, and asked her about her friends. Instead of answering, she asked _him_ why she saw him around the team so often, and why he never said anything, and why it was so hard for her to see him properly, and he’d laughed. He cared about her friends, he said. He couldn’t be seen by them unless they were dead or dying, but he liked to check on them, when he could find a moment. That made as much sense as anything else Halo could think of, so she’d just nodded. Then things went purple around the edges and the Man in Black grinned and told her he didn’t want to talk to her again for a long time, because four times was more than enough. 

Bart is getting tired of being haunted by his mistakes. Well. Not _all_ his mistakes, but the Big One. The one where his cousin is gone and he’s Kid Flash in his place and he’s still not _fast enough._ He _knows_ no hero can save everyone but sometimes… when someone dies, someone he could have saved, he swears he can see Wally right there, clear as day if only for a moment. He’s always smiling as he holds a hand out and Bart kicks himself because if he was faster, if he planned better, maybe he could have brought them home. Maybe if Wally was still here _he_ could’ve kept them safe. He keeps moving. The only way to deal with grief and guilt is to push through it. Maybe one day, he won’t see him at all. 

Gar wasn’t great at processing things. One big revelation after those goggles was enough, right? But. When he was trying to fall asleep that night… he just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Something about Wally had felt different from the others. Maybe it was the monkey god. It had used Wally’s voice, right? Well, assuming that the monkey god was real anyway. It could have been just a hallucination. He _had_ almost died. Maybe he should talk to M’gann about it.

Honestly, being a Reaper wasn’t such a bad gig. He got to keep helping people, which was great. The Boss Lady was fair, a bit firm, but when you were dealing with as much as she was that was practically a requirement. He’d like it better if he didn’t see his friends so much when he was actively on the job, but that wasn’t exactly something he could control. He’d even had a conversation with a few of them, which for the most part nobody seemed to remember. Ghosting around everyone was safer than the alternative, though. The longest he’d managed to manifest himself for had been just shy of sixty seconds and he’d left two footprints of desiccated dead grass behind him. Better not risk one of his friends trying to touch him. Wally sighed and took a few steps, leaving the in-between to stop in front of another meta on his list. He smiled and held out his hand. “Hey, angel. You fought the good fight, but now it’s time to let go. You ready?” 


End file.
